“We can’t leave tonight,” Maraton said.  “I am addressing a meeting of the representatives of the Amalgamated Railway Workers—­that is, if Peter Dale doesn’t manage to stop it.  He’ll do his best.”

“He won’t succeed,” Aaron declared eagerly.  “I saw Ernshaw two hours ago.  They’re on to Peter Dale and his move.  Do you know why Peter Dale was late here this afternoon?  He’d been to Downing Street.  I heard.  Foley’s lost you, but he’s holding on to the Labour Party.  He’s pitting the Labour Party against you in the country.”  Selingman laughed heartily.

“He’s got it!” he exclaimed.  “That’s the scheme.  I am all for a fight, spoiling for it.  Fighting and eating are the grandest things in the world!  What time is the meeting?”

“Seven o’clock,” Maraton replied.

“Two hours we will give you,” Selingman continued.  “Nine o’clock, a little restaurant I know in the West End, the four of us before we start.  We will do ourselves well.”

“Before I leave London,” Maraton said, “I must see Maxendorf once more.”

Selingman stroked his face thoughtfully.

“Your risk,” he remarked.  “Don’t you let these chaps think you are mixed up with Maxendorf.”

“I must see Maxendorf,” Maraton insisted.  “When I leave London to-night, the die is cast.  I have cut myself adrift from everything in life.  I shall make enemies with every class of society.  There must be one word more pass between Maxendorf and me before I hold up the torch.”

“He’s got it,” Selingman declared.  “The trick is on him already.  Maxendorf he shall see.  I will arrange a meeting somewhere—­not at the hotel.  Miss Julia, write down this address.  This is where we all meet at nine.  Half-past six now.  I will take you round to your meeting, Maraton.  Do you want any papers?”

“I want no papers,” Maraton answered.  “I speak to these men to-night as I shall speak to them in the north.  I take no papers from London with me, no figures, nothing.  It is just the things I see I want to tell them.”

Selingman nodded.

“You shall speak immortal words,” he declared.  “And I—­I am the one man in the world to transcribe them, to write in the background, to give them colour and point.  What giants we are, Maraton—­you with your stream of words, and I with my pen!  Miss Julia,” he added, “remember that you are to be our inspiration as well as my secretary.  Put on your prettiest clothes to-night.  It is our last holiday.”

She looked at him coldly.

“I do not wear pretty clothes,” she said.

“Little fool!” he exclaimed.  “Just because you’ve the big things beating in your brain, you’d like to close your eyes to the fact that your sex is the most wonderful thing on God’s earth.  That’s the worst of a woman.  If ever she begins to think seriously, she does her hair in a lump, changes silk for cotton, forgets her corsets, and leaves off ribbons.  Silly, silly